Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Anchorage

We drove into the big city today. Anchorage looks just like any city in the lower 48 except for the snow covered mountains in the distance. Every chain store and restaurant is here. We checked all our RV park guides and decided to try the cheapest of the three major campgrounds and planned to stay for two or three days so we could get some stuff done. The place advertised $27 last year, which was expensive but not overly so. When we got there the place was packed and they now charge $42 a night. Apparently one the biggest RV parks in the city closed this year (bulldozed and is becoming a super Target) and with the shortage of spaces everyone has raised their rates to whatever the traffic will bear.

After some thinking things over we decided to try a city RV park that advertised $20 a day, but no hookups. The place is really nice with very large sites, just like a wilderness campground. The only drawback is the road noise from the Glenn Highway, but we are used to that and can’t see it from the park. We have decided to stay here until time to fly back down to Phoenix. The kids are tired of traveling and wanted to stay in one place for a while. There are things to do here and we can make day trips in the truck to many nearby areas. We have also been warned about finding a place and hunkering down during the 4th of July weekend which is this weekend. Then, we leave on the 5th for Phoenix and need to leave the trailer in a safe place. This place seems very good, as the city police patrol frequently and there are two campground hosts here all the time.

After checking in we went shopping, down to the airport to check out parking for the truck while we are gone (off airport at only $9 a day) and to a CompUSA to see about getting my laptop repaired. The power connection has become flakey and I need to have it fixed. CompUSA said they could fix it by replacing the mother board. That would only cost about $800! I explained to the young man that I just needed someone to open it up and re-solder the connection on the mother board. I was not going to buy a new mother board just because a solder joint had broken. CompUSA will only replace parts. They will not solder anything, but the young man understood (and agreed that it was dumb) and suggested I take it to Pyramid Computers, an independent shop in town. So I did. They said they repair them all the time and would have it ready by tomorrow afternoon.

We returned to the campground, took a hike, washed bugs off the front of the truck, and roasted hot dogs over the fire for dinner. Then we had smores for desert. The campground has no wireless so we told the kids we would have to go to Starbucks every couple days to use the internet. That was more exciting than anything on the trip since the West Edmonton Mall. They love Starbucks.